Improved railway-switch



UNITED STATES PATENT EEICEo 4 JACOB o. MecAn'rY, oFeEAE'roN, WESTVIRGINIA, AssIeNoE To WM.` E. PORTER, 0E sAME PLACE.

IM PROVED RAI LWAY-SWITCH.

Specification forming part of Letters Patent No. 74,108, dated February4, 1868.

To all whom it 'may concern.-

Be it known that I, JACOB G. MGCAR'IY, of Grafton, in the county ofTaylor and State of West Virginia, have invented a new and ImprovedRailway-Switch; and I do hereby declare the following to be a full,clear, and exact description'ofthe same,suiiicientto enable thoseskilled in the art to which my invention appertains to make use of it,reference being had to the accompanying drawings, forming part of thisspecification, and in which- Figure 1 is a top view of my invention.Fig. 2 is a side elevation, showing the hin-ged chair, a portion of thechair being broken away in order to exhibit its construction moreclearly.

The object of this invention is to construct a switch by which the useof frogs can be avoided and the cars be made to run always on a smoothcontinuous track, and thereby to render the motion ofthe cars easier andto save ,t the wheels `from wear.

In the drawings, A A A2 represent the section of track on one side ofthe switch, and B B that on the other side. One of the rails, A2, isfixed; all the others are movable, being pivoted at their outer ends insuch a manner that their inner ends swing back and forth to and from thespindle of the switch, the two rails A A' moving together and parallelto each other, and the two B 'B' moving also together and parallel toeach other, and one pair alternating with the other. The sliding end ofeach movable rail is supported upon an iron cushion, C, providedwithears c at each end, which keep the rails from moving beyond the properlimits. The pivot at the opposite end of the rails A A is formed bymaking the ch air D in two parts, d d', the part d' resting upon andpivoted to the part d, as shown in Fig. 1, so as to swinghorizontallyupon the pivot. The end of the movable rail is confined in the part d',and the rail swings with this hinged portion of the chair.

I may describe the hinged chair more intelligbly by saying that theimmovable part of it, d, is composed of a bottom plate, e, which extendsunder and supports the whole chair, and a more elevated portion, e',which supports the lugs i t', that hold the outer section of rails, andthat ,in the raised portion e is a semicircular recess, m, cut down to alevel with the bottom plate. Themovable part d ofthehinge is cast so asto rest on the bottom plate, e, and have the top of its lugs level'withthose of the xed part, and is provided with a semicircular Iiange, n,which ts within the recess m of the xed part. The pivot upon which themovable part turns is a bolt, p, driven vertically through the flan ge'n and the bottom plate e, at the center of the circle of which the rimof the recess m is an arc. The rails being thus arranged and hinged attheir outer ends, each movable pair on either side of the switch has itsmembers rmly connected together by a stout rod, B R', near their innerend. To the outer end of these rods are attached pltmen P P', extendingnearly parallel to each other, and hinged at their outer extremities toa stout horizontal beam, T, which vibrates upon a central pivot, U. Achain, S, is attached to either end of the beam T and passes around avertical shaft or spindle, W. Y

A hand-wheel, w, is aixed to the upper end of the vertical shaft, and byturning the handwheel in one direction or the other it is evident thatthe balance-beam T will be moved one Way or the other, and by means ofthe pit# men P-P' and rods R It' will force one pair of rails, A A', inone direction and the other pair,B B,in the opposite direction, thusbringing the rails A A2, B B together and forming a continuous maintrack, or bringing the rails A A B Bl together and turning the cars offon the siding. I

It is not absolutely essential that the rails B B'should be pivoted attheir outer ends. These rails belong to the main track, and aretherefore long enough to bend sufficiently to meet the rails A A.

The pivot U of the balance-beam maybe locked in the one position or theother by means of a key, K, and pin k.

By this device the use of frogs to guide the car-wheels from one trackto the other is entirely avoided, the rails always forming a continuoustrack.' The cars will pass smoothly over such a track without jarringand thumping, and the face or tread of the wheels will be worn evenly,and willlast much longer than where the switches hitherto in use areemployed.

Havingthus described my invention, what I claim as new and desire tosecure by Letters equivalent, substantially as and for the pur- Patent,ispose specied.

1. The hinged chair D, when constructed in x the manner and used for thepurpose specified. JACOB (J' MCOARTY' 2. The combination of the movablerails A Witnesses:

A B B with the fixed rail A2, connecting- (JOHN T. LATHAM,

rods R R,pitmen P P, balance-wheel T, chains G. E. JARVIS,

` S or their equivalents, and shaft W or its SAML. P. WHEELER.

